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Updated AppleShare Apple II Boot Blocks

AppleShare Apple II Boot Blocks are used by the Apple IIgs, Apple II Workstation Card, and the Apple //e Card for Macintosh LC to initiate a network boot. For the IIgs and Workstation Card, it is a true network boot and the boot blocks are downloaded from the server. The Apple //e Card loads them from its application file instead.

The purpose of the Apple //e boot blocks are to install ProDOS in memory, initialize AppleTalk, and allow the user to logon to a file server. Ultimately, the end result is that the system achieves a diskless startup. The IIgs boot blocks are similar, but include a first-stage boot loader that loads a second stage (which is what we are concerned with) that includes the second stage code itself (“Fizzy”) as well as several embedded files for setting up AppleTalk higher-level protocols and selectively booting ProDOS 8 or GS/OS.

These AppleShare Apple //e boot blocks use the latest version of the logon program and are available with ProDOS 2.0.3 (the last official release from Apple) or ProDOS 2.4.x by John Brooks.

ProDOS 2.4.1 has been patched to work around bugs in Bitsy Bye related to the Apple //e Card for Macintosh LC. Note that ProDOS 2.4.2 includes these fixes.

For AppleShare Server and Netatalk

Normally, the Apple IIgs reads the Boot OS (ProDOS 8 or GS/OS) selection from the battery RAM (BRAM). The following boot blocks have been modified to allow overriding the BRAM selection by two methods: Press 8 or G before the “Starting Up Over the Network” message appears to select ProDOS 8 or GS/OS respectively, or modify the ProDOS16 Image file at $0204 to have 0 for firmware decides (default), 1 for GS/OS, and 2 for ProDOS 8.

Note that ProDOS 2.4.x seems to have trouble being part of the GS/OS boot blocks and crashes to the monitor.

Installation

Netatalk

This assumes you already have Netatalk with Apple II boot working.

Download the boot blocks file, expand with gunzip, and copy to the a2boot subdirectory of the netatalk config directory. Name the //e file Apple :2f:2fe Boot Blocks and the IIgs file ProDOS16 Image. You probably want to back up your existing files first.

AppleShare Server

I don't personally run this so it is untested, but you will likely need to change the type and creator after finding a way to get the expanded file onto your Macintosh. The files will need to be named Apple //e Boot Blocks and ProDOS16 Image and you should back up your existing files.